UPDATE: 11/29 MAJOR SOFTWARE UPDATE – CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS. Tons of new features including ability to do ranking reports for keywords without geo modifier. HUGE! Distance from city center added to competitive analysis. Also HUGE! If you already read the original post from Nov 10, be sure to skip down to read about all the new software features. (Even if you already purchased, learn about all the new power that was added.)

PLACES SCOUT – You guys KNOW how hard it is to find local rank tracking software that really cuts the mustard! I have BETA tested so many programs + use other disjointed tools for competitive analysis and other tasks to run my business. But half the time I just need to go to Google and do manual checks to get the data I need.

Today I am SO excited to share with you guys some software I’ve been BETA testing that is like a swiss army knife for local SEO. It does really advanced Places rank tracking PLUS competitive analysis to help you rank your clients higher, PLUS lead generation to help you find new clients PLUS citation finding PLUS reputation management to a degree and lots more, all in one VERY INEXPENSIVE software program. (I keep telling him I could sell this at 3 times the price. Lucky for you he hasn’t taken me up on it yet!)

Before I even introduce it I want to explain part of the ranking tracking piece that is REALLY important. I had the developer program in a way to show you the TYPE of rankings your client has. Do they rank #2 in a 7 pack plus #3 organic? Or #4 in blended? (If you don’t know why this is SO important read below.)

Introducing Places Scout. (FYI the site isn’t even up yet, so this is a link to a special discount at the Warrior forum – $only 97 right now.)

There are TONS of features, so watch the videos and check out the screenshots that explain each module. So be sure to check out the features that interest you for more info, as this post mainly zeros in on the rank tracking piece. The software has gone through several updates and I was holding back until the last one to announce this to be sure it has most of the new features. And I have him working on some new stuff that will really blow you away! But there are lifetime upgrades, so you can buy now while the price is so low and grow with it, as new features are continually added.

NO OTHER SOFTWARE shows you what TYPE of ranking all in one report. (Pure Places, Pure Organic, Blended and 7 Pack) This is HUGE! (More info about that below.) And again this program does an amazing job of competitive analysis, prospecting and citation research. But the part I’m most excited about is the rank tracking. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO BELOW.

Places Scout has something the leading local software I use is missing – something we really need for local. Due to all G’s changes we need to know not only WHERE a client ranks but what type of ranking it is. Are they #2 in a 7 pack plus #3 organic? Or #4 in blended? So I told Mark this was an important missing piece of the puzzle and told him I wouldn’t even switch to his program unless he could make it happen. He did that and TONS more!

WHY is it important to know if your clients is ranking with a Blended, 7 pack or organic result? You can have a client that’s ranking #4 in a generic report that does not spell out the difference. A week later they drop to #22. With reports that don’t show the different SERP styles, you have no way of knowing why they dropped. They could have ranked high in 7 pack but then drop due to G switching that KW to a blended. They may have had lots of citations and ranked in pk, BUT you have not optimized site yet, so that’s why they don’t rank high now that G switched to blended.

I WAS using what I think WAS the best for local rankings (until now). But it does not give me that added level of detail that I need, so I still had to manually spot check rankings all the time and make manual notes about what type of ranking it is. Not any more!

So check out Places Scout and let me know what you think. For $97, even if you just used the competitive analysis piece to help rank clients higher, it would pay for itself. (I haven’t even talked about that part yet, but it’s really powerful, check out the video at the warrior link above.)

Wait til you see some of the new features Mark and I are brainstorming now. The software is already killer, but soon you’ll see some amazing features no one else has. Also if you have any features you think need to be added just let me know. If it’s an important feature lots of people need, I’ll pass it on to Mark. He’s an Fing GENIOUS and can probably make it happen!

11/29 UPDATE: MAJOR NEW PLACES SCOUT SOFTWARE UPDATE
Based on my recommendations Mark has furiously been programming some MAJOR new features. One of the most important is the ability to run ranking reports for KEYWORD ONLY without a city modifier, emulating the location of the consumers around that business area. So in addition to getting ranking reports that include “city dentist” and “dentist city” you can also find out how your client ranks for “dentist” within that geo region. This is HUGE! See the following posts for all the reason this is so important. Geo Modifier Keyword Research and also really important see Proximity Lockout Algo

NEW FEATURES – AND FIXES – Places Scout Version 2.1.0

New Features Added

New Location Emulation Rank Tracking Feature!

Places Scout can now track rankings using new location emulation technology! This allows you to perform a keyword query without the geo-modifier

This is the same as searching for just a keyword (with no location) but changing your Google location to the entered location. Very powerful for accurate and complete rank tracking reports.

You can now enter both regular locations and emulated locations when creating a ranking report.

Support for Zip Code Map Polygons – Places Scout can now draw polygons around US Zip Code boundaries when a zip code is entered as a location. Useful in conjunction with new Location Emulation technology.

Map Polygons are now available when entering just a city name (as long as there isn’t another city with the same name)

Bulk Ranking Report Functions – You can now perform bulk actions on all ranking reports to save time managing many ranking reports. The following bulk features are now available:

Bulk Import Client Data – Creates ranking reports for all your clients from CSV files that you can create from most CRM programs.

Search and Sort Ranking Reports – New features allow you search ranking reports and filter / sort all reports.

Rank Tracker – Geo-Distance from Center for Competitor Data – Geo-Distance from center is now provided for each competitor result in the Rank Tracker data. Helps you understand how far each result is location geographically from the location centroid.

Mobile Website Detection – Places Scout will now provide whether a business has a mobile website in the Find Local Clients module. There is a new option under the ‘Select Additional Data to Gather’ button that you can choose to gather this data.

A filter has been added to filter out results that have a mobile site.

Organic 7-Pack / Blended Results in Find Local Clients – Places Scout can now provide Organic 7-pack / Blended Results data in addition to the current Places Results in the Find Local Clients module. There is a new option under the ‘Select Additional Data to Gather’ button that you can choose to gather this data.

New Social Media Metrics in Find Local Clients – Places Scout will now provide the Reddit score and Delicious bookmark count for each result when choosing to gather social media metrics.

Custom Gridview Filtering – You can now add custom data filters in all grid views for any data column. Here’s how to do it:

Click the grid view options button in the upper left corner of any grid view. There is now a button to enable / disable custom filtering. Click this button to enable custom filtering.

After enabling custom filtering, there will be a filter icon to the right of all the grid view column headers. Click this icon, and a dialog will appear where you can apply any filtering logic to the data column.

Ranking Report Data Optimization – Many optimizations have been made to the code that saves and loads ranking report data – the UI is much faster and more responsive when navigating ranking reports.

Reduced Memory Footprint – Places Scout now uses less RAM due to optimizations made in ranking report data storage.

In-Memory Data Caching – Places Scout will now cache various data elements when gathering data so that the software doesn’t gather the same data over and over again for data runs that have identical results.

This GREATLY speeds up data gathering when the same results are returned for similar queries.

Only data that should be cached is cached so that results are always up to date.

Application Responsiveness – The application UI is now much speedier than before as upgrades have been made to all UI controls.

Hey Jo. Have scraper too, but not sure I’ve used the very latest version. From what I know tho it’s apples and oranges to some degree.

But last I used GPS it does awesome for competitive analysis, which is all I’ve used it for. Places Scout has similar features so they are fairly comparable on that front I think. (Although honestly have not compared feature for feature for their analysis capability)

However the main thing I need is RANK TRACKING and last I knew GPS didn’t do that. And Scout does TONS of things with rank tracking really well. There are layers and layers of tracking data, that you can customize to get exactly what you need to see OR what you want to show the client. There are all kinds of hidden features you won’t even know are there because the SW has so many options. Every time I try it or talk to Mark I find new features I didn’t even know about. Lots of hidden power to do whatever you need so need to watch the vids and click the buttons and read tooltips on all the menu items and tabs.

So if you already have GPS and you don’t need rank tracking ONLY analysis, then you are good. OR if GPS now does extensive and configurable rank tracking and somehow I missed the news then I need to try it.

If you don’t have either one then Scout is a lot less expensive and does more IMO. I mean I love GPS, don’t get me wrong and I think pros would do well do have both.

I can also say that this software is incredible and so is the lead programmer, Mark.

We have a large team of SEO Operators and this system is by far the best way to manage our 1000+ client list.

In fact, our sales team are in the process of integrating this on their iPads to acquire customers, our customer service team use this to assist rank, our CRM team use this to generate reports and graphs (especially the screen shots of the map which nobody else does) and our SEO team use this to manage falling listings.

Our last audit suggested this software has saved us over $50,000+ annually in manual time saving tasks.

The most impressive piece is it’s constantly updated to reflect changes in Panda or other algo/UI changes meaning we’re always supported.

And trust me, we have a $20k annual budget for testing software to improve processes – and have tried everything nothing’s even come close, especially for the price.

As far as I know it works in most if not all countries. I’m sure it explains on the site I linked to. Too tired right now to go find it. But maybe Mark will stop by tomorrow to answer questions if people have more.

It does lots more than you realize at 1st. Tons of flexibility built in so you need to check all tabs and tooltips. Really user friendly and easy once you figure it out. But there are just so many features you sometimes have to dig a little to find them all.

Thanks for sharing Linda! I bought and will use it and report back our results! I’m hoping this will also allow to do search rankings for JUST the primary keyword, ie “dentists”, without a geo-modifier/city?? I have software that does that already, but is undergoing an update after the recent GP changes…..

Hey Eric, it doesn’t yet but based on the KW research 2 blog posst back, the developer realizes the importance and is working on an upgrade for us. The kicker is geocoding location the way G does or trying to simulate that. We have kicked several ideas around and he did a prototype for me but he’s still tweaking and should be done soon.

What software do you have that does than now? And how do they geocode where the searcher is searching from?

Let me know what you think of the software. Hope it helps you in numerous ways!

[…] RED HOT – Places Scout – Local Rank Tracking, Competitive Analysis, Citation Finder My new swiss army knife local SEO must-have tool. Advanced Places rank tracking PLUS competitive analysis to help you rank your clients higher PLUS lead generation to help you find new clients PLUS citation finding PLUS reputation management to a degree and lots more, all in one VERY INEXPENSIVE software program. Even shows rankings VISUALLY on the map. Special offer only $97 but is going up to $197 so grab it now! Check out videos and screenshots. My review here. […]

Yes, will buy soon, for sure. I love that you stay up on all these developments and are so generous with them. My pleasure to pass along any affiliate commissions I can, though I know that’s not why you share this stuff. Keep ‘em coming!

Thanks for the sale Kathy! Money is never my primary motive to do anything. Helping people is. Heck I help people for free all the time in the Google forum and free consults.

So really the comment you emailed me “Wow, Linda. That software is great. It’s exactly as I would developed it had I the talent, skills and resources.” was payment enough, but of course money never hurts!

I’m trying to find time to blog and show some reports using the competitive analysis features next since this post only highlighted the tracking piece.

@Dino, so sorry for the delay approving your post from this AM. Akismet ate your post and I missed it in the spam folder. May want to check with them to get that fixed. But I need to do a better job of checking all my folders. Starting to get so much spam that I am missing good posts like yours. Thanks!

Thanks Linda…just purchased and look forward to analyzing the results. I figured the rank tracking and reporting alone is worth the money. You bring up a good point about being able to identify why a ranking changed dramatically by tracking which algo Google has been using historically for each keyword.

Hey Linda, so glad I popped over to your Scoop.it topic today and found this update on Scout. REALLY liked Mark’s video demo on the acquire client module. I won’t pontificate and use “game changer” adjectives but whooahh this is one sweet GP app that I need to Paypal pronto! Wish there was an aff link with your name on it so I could show you some WF love in the process.

Linda, I’m kinda jealous. I have a couple of topics on Scoop.it and want to follow your lead and insert the scoop.it widget but can’t seem to locate it? Maybe you have link or a pointer to share on this?

It appears to me that this only does Google Places whereas Power Leads Pro X uses yellowpages, superpages, manta.com, Google maps and places and a ton of others. The data looks the same to between the different fields for position, images, SEOMOZ. So why would I spend 97 dollars on this app if I can’t even use it to send emails?

Sort of an apples to oranges comparison. Depends on the primary features you need. If you need something primarily for lead gen then Power Leads Pro X may be a better choice right now. (Not endorsing have not used and don’t know anything about it.)
But email option is coming to Scout soon FYI.

I NEVER DO LEAD GEN – all my clients come to me so I don’t have a need to do any prospecting. So my primary needs are to help clients rank better and track rankings which Scout does really well.

Not sure about Power Leads Pro X. Does it do rank tracking over time? Save reports? Show the different types of ranking? (Pack vs blended vs organic) I think it’s more just about lead gen right?

It isn’t slow for me and I have not had any other complaints. Have you contacted Mark? Maybe there is an issue with your set-up or something. The support email address is right in the software. Contact him and he’ll get you squared away.

[…] Mike – 6:00 am A number of contributors to the Places forums (Treebles, Helmut, Nyagoslav, Linda Buquet, myself) have assembled this first shot at a list of known bugs in Google Places and the Google […]

I'm an experienced web marketing consultant, but have to admit, l learned a lot from my info packed Google+ Local Optimization training with Linda. (SEO Consultant)

"Linda goes above and beyond for her students, teaching the ins and outs of local SEO. Both of Linda's trainings were excellent and covered material I haven't seen taught anywhere else." (Marketing Agency)